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Alabama attorney calls for ‘missing’ woman to be arrested for lying to the police about being kidnapped

July 21, 2023 | | Print Article

An Alabama attorney has called for Carlee Russell to be arrested for lying to the police about being kidnapped.

Russell is a black nursing student who went missing for roughly two days last week after she called 911 to report seeing a toddler walking along the highway alone.

“Russell told a dispatcher that she would pull over to help the child; she then proceeded to call her brother’s girlfriend, who heard Russell scream down the line. Russell then vanished for 48 hours,” according to The Cut.

She suddenly turned up at her parent’s home two days later.

“When Russell finally showed up at her family’s door, she was, according to her parents, ‘not in a good state’ and claimed to have been abducted. Police say Russell told them that she went through a harrowing ordeal involving an 18-wheeler truck; forced, nonconsensual nude photography; and multiple escapes,” The Cut notes.

There’s just one problem: The police have been unable to confirm the vast majority of her story, which is why some now say she’s the new Jussie Smollett:

Former criminal defense attorney Eric Guster appears to be among the skeptics. Following a police press conference this week during which the cops unveiled their lack of evidence, Guster said it was clear Russell had lied.

“She says she was kidnaped, and a kidnapping didn’t happen. (They, the police, say) our citizens are safe. There’s not a kidnapper out there. So, they use every other synonym for lie except saying she lied,” he told local station WVTM.

He added that the search for Russell wasted the time and money of both local police and concerned community members.

It was also a slap in the face to the families of real victims like Aniah Blanchard, who was reportedly murdered. In a Facebook post, Blanchard’s father, Elijah Blanchard, said that the Russell case had reopened the wounds from the murder.

“Imagine going and searching for someone, and they’re off doing something else, and they’re never in danger. And you’re thinking about saving this person’s daughter, and yours was not saved. Beyond angry, super livid. That would be me,” Guster said in regard to Blanchard’s tragic Facebook post.

He’s also worried that Russell’s case could negatively impact future missing persons cases.

“It’s going to be much more difficult for African American women to be believed, and it may actually decrease the number of actual reports of things because people are already afraid that they won’t be believed,” he said.

Listen to his remarks below:

As for Russell, he had some advice for her attorney.

“If I was Carlee’s attorney, I would speak for her. I would not allow her to speak to the police because anything she says can and will be used against her. I would speak for her. I would go to the mayor; I would go to the police chief and figure out if there’s something we could do. That’s what I would do,” he said.

He concluded his remarks by saying he was surprised Russell hasn’t already been arrested for theft, lying to authorities, and filing a false police report.

The theft accusation evidently stems from what she’d looked up on her phone.

“After police found Carlee Russell’s cell phone Thursday, they looked for information on it and discovered web searches that included ‘Do you have to pay for an amber alert?’ and ‘How to take money from a register without being caught,‘” according to  CNN.

“[S]earches for bus tickets from Birmingham to Nashville with a departure date of July 13 and for the movie ‘Taken’ were also in the history on Russell’s phone,” CNN reported Thursday.

“Taken” is a classic 2008 movie about … a kidnapping:

But it gets worse.

“[P]olice have not found any evidence of a toddler walking down the interstate, nor did they receive additional calls about it despite numerous vehicles passing through that area,” CNN notes.

Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis further said it’s hard for him to understand how a little child who was three or four years old could have been walking barefoot along the highway without either crying or accidentally walking out onto the road.

“There are many questions left to be answered, but only Carlee can provide those answers,” he said at a press conference Wednesday.

Critics say the catch is that there are no answers because this was nothing more than a hoax carried out by a very distressed woman …

Vivek Saxena
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